The Measure of a Man
by 4thFromTheFurnace
Summary: When Gou comes home late to find a strange man in her house, rummaging around in her fridge in the middle of the night, she automatically suspects something might be wrong. May eventually be a two-shot.


**Just a little story I whipped up last minute to dedicate to a friend who's having a rough time. I know you'll probably read this, my dear, forgive me for being utterly dreadful at proper encouraging communication. Thus, I figured it better to show you. To all my other readers, if you enjoy it, please do take it to heart!****  
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**(Takes place after the end of Eternal Summer)**

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The ride home had really taken it out of her. Gou picked up her cell phone and shot a quick text to Makoto to tell him she had gotten home safely, otherwise the worrywart would fret incessantly instead of focusing on his classes. She opened the door and took off her shoes before going into the house, expecting nothing but to sleep the rest of the night. She was wrong.

"Oi. Gou. Where's the meat?"

The presence of a deep male voice caused her to jump, barely holding back a squeal of surprise. She glanced in the kitchen to find her brother poking about the refrigerator in nothing but sweatpants and a tank top.

She paused, watching him dig about the shelves in the fridge, then called out in disbelief, "Nii-san?"

He grumbled without looking up at her, "Tch. Who'd you think it was?"

Setting her bags down, she meandered into the kitchen, "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like? I'm trying to find some meat! And I don't want any fish! Fish is not real meat!"

Leaning on the fridge door, she peered around it to look at her binging older sibling, "No, I mean, what are you doing in Japan? The semester isn't over and you usually don't come home on breaks except for Christmas."

He didn't answer her, so she pressed, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. What makes you think that?" he chuckled sourly.

"You're binging."

"I'm not binging. Geez, you'd think with as much time as you spend around those weirdos that you would know how much guys eat."

Gou glanced over to the table, where the shark had amassed a hoard of boxes of rice, eggs, instant curry, and hot sauce so large that the pile covered every visible inch of the table. She sighed and shook her head, "Whatever you say, Nii-san…"

Gou shrugged and yawned, then made to leave the kitchen, but Rin's hand on her wrist stopped her.

"Where are you going?"

She blinked at him, "I'm going to my room, it's pretty late…"

Rin didn't respond, but his hand never loosened around her wrist. Gou smiled softly, "I'll stick around for a while…I hardly ever get to see you anymore anyway. And you still never text back…"

Rin grumbled, and Gou sat down at the table while he fixed his mountain of food. He never said a word, and Gou spent the time trying to figure out what was bothering him. Why had he gone to all the trouble to fly all the way back home for a couple days? He apparently visited Tokyo occasionally to hang out with Haruka and Makoto when he came back, but to just hang around the house binge-eating in the middle of the night was a little strange even for him. So while he cooked, she decided to test the waters.

"So, Nii-san. How is Australia? It's really warm down there right now, right?"

He mumbled an affirmative, so she struck that off the list.

"Have you met any cool people? Have you seen anybody you know?"

A noncommittal response. Another miss.

"Did you find a girlfriend yet?" she added a teasing smirk.

He moaned. Nope.

She was running out of possibilities…so she tried one last time.

"What about swimming training and such? How's that going?"

"Enough with the questions, woman! Geez, don't you have anything better to talk about?" he snarled.

Bingo.

Loading his arms with plates of food, he made his way out of the kitchen, "I'm going in my room."

Whether his statement was an invitation or a warning was always a bit of a mystery, but she figured it'd probably be best to leave him alone for a little while.

She changed her mind an hour later when her concern led her to open his bedroom door.

"Nii-san?"

Her question was shaky as she faced the garbage dump that was before her. Her brother was buried in here…somewhere. Strategically stepping through the minefield, she found him draped in a blanket on the other side of the room, sitting on his dish-littered bed whilst brainlessly leafing through an old textbook. The situation was highly suspect…

Clearing some magazines away from beside his bed, she knelt on the floor. She folded her arms on the mattress and leaned her head on them with a sigh, "So are you going to tell me what's wrong or do I have to guess?"

Rin gnawed on the tip of the pencil in his hand, "There's nothing wrong. I just felt like coming home, that's all."

Gou narrowed her eyes suspiciously, then rose to her feet, brushing off the crumbs from the floor that had stuck to her knees. She started by picking up the magazines and organizing them. It didn't take more than ten seconds.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm cleaning."

"Stop that!"

She stopped and stared at him, "Nii-san, you're sitting on the bed in a blanket chewing on a pencil in the middle of a junkyard. Don't tell me there's nothing wrong. You despise mess. The least I can do is help you clean."

"Leave it alone."

"Why should I?"

He drew the blanket over his head and huddled into it, baring his teeth, "The chaos soothes me. So leave it alone. It frees me."

Gou's face fell into her hands. Oh heavens. It was so much worse than she thought. Heaving a great sigh, she moved the mass of dishes on his bed and fell to a seat there. She knew Rin could get easily discouraged, so, given the circumstances, she figured she might have a hypothesis about what was bothering him.

"Nii-san, will you listen to me for a few minutes?"

He didn't answer, which was close enough to a 'yes' for her.

"If this is about your feelings about your swimming ability, especially if it has something to do with what other people tell you, then there's something you need to know."

Rin didn't answer and didn't retort, so she continued.

"Nobody else can define your worth and what you do. It doesn't matter what your times are or how someone else says you measure up. You can't define your worth by them."

Gou smiled, "Your talent as a swimmer isn't defined by what someone else says about you. It doesn't change your worth at all. Your future isn't something that somebody else should write for you."

She tapped her chin for a moment, "It's like the Sistine Chapel. The best art critic in the world could walk into it and look up at the ceiling and say that it's a piece of trash. Does that make it a piece of trash just because some critic says so?"

He snorted, "You've been hanging out with that advisor of yours a bit too much."

Gou giggled, "Perhaps I have. But she does say some good things once in a while."

Rin rolled his eyes. Gou, in turn, smiled at him. Even so, he seemed to listen to her well enough. The truth was that, despite his gruff exterior, Rin Matsuoka was sensitive and emotional, and prone to a lack of self-confidence when push came to shove. This never made him any less of a man; in fact, she loved him for it, even if he couldn't love himself. He would laugh at her for saying such a thing at this point though, and hence wouldn't take it to heart.

At the end of her little pep talk, she rose from her seat and maneuvered towards the door, giving her brother's shoulder an affectionate squeeze as she passed. When she made it to the doorway, she turned to face him again.

"And Nii-san? That thing I said, it goes for you too. Just because you may think you're trash, it doesn't make it true."

He stared at her with wide eyes, and she winked at him, "So try not to be so hard on yourself, okay?"

He sputtered, "Wait, how did you know all that stuff?"

She raised her eyebrows and grinned, "Woman's intuition?"

When Rin raised one eyebrow, she relented, "Okay, so maybe Makoto might have mentioned something about you seeming a little down when I went to meet him today, I just didn't expect you to actually be home right now. Come to think of it, we should both probably get some sleep, it's really late."

She wandered out of his room with every intention of having some proper quality time with her brother when she was awake enough to function, at an hour that wasn't obscenely late. Meanwhile, the blanket fell unceremoniously from Rin's shoulders as he sat frozen on the bed. Finally his brain jumpstarted at the same time his body did as he scrambled to get to his feet, "Wait, Gou! What were you doing meeting with Makoto?!"

And at that moment, she deemed it time to make herself exceedingly scarce and hope he'd forget about that particular detail by the morning.

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**No, I won't apologize for any MakoGou hints that may or may not have slipped in there! I refuse!**

**Thinking of making it a Two-Shot, I have a plan for another side to the story, but I guess we'll see what kind of time I have. Hope you all enjoyed it!  
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**And My Friend, you know who you are, or at least I sure hope you do, please take this thing to heart, and be encouraged! I made time in my train wreck life just for you!  
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**Blessings everyone!  
**

**~4thFromtheFurnace**


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